The project was conceived by Ji Lee, an artist and art director who originally printed 15,000 stickers that look like speech bubbles used in comic strips. He posts these blank speech bubbles on top of advertisements throughout New York City allowing anyone who sees them to write in their comments and thoughts. By filling in the bubbles people engage in the project and transform "the corporate monologue into an open dialogue".[citation needed]
The Bubble Project quickly gained popularity and independent efforts have sprung up in other parts of the world in countries such as Italy or Argentina.[1][2]
On June 1, 2006, a book written by Lee was released. It explains the whole idea behind the project and shows the best pictures taken in the first 4 years, showing the results of the project.[3]